Search This Blog

Tuesday, November 29, 2011

Assemblyman William Boyland Jr. busted on bribery charges

State Assemblyman William Boyland Jr. is accused of soliciting more than $250,000 in bribes from undercover federal agents in exchange for his influence in securing state fundingA Brooklyn state assemblyman who just beat a corruption rap was busted Tuesday on new charges of soliciting more than $250,000 in bribes from undercover FBI agents, authorities said.

William Boyland Jr. sought bribes from undercovers who posed as associates of a carnival operator seeking locations in his Brownsville-Bedford Stuyvesant district and a real estate investor looking to break into the Brooklyn market, a newly unsealed federal complaint says.

The timing of the alleged shakedown makes Boyland’s actions more brazen. The complaint says he and a member of his staff asked an undercover agent for $7,000 in March — shortly after Manhattan federal prosecutors charged him with soliciting bribes from a health care organization.

Boyland told the undercover that he needed money "to solidify some attorneys."

In a meeting secretly recorded in the assemblyman's office on March 25, the undercover agent passed the cash to Boyland in exchange for state funding to finance development projects, the complaint says.

Boyland said his support was a "no brainer" and gave the undercover agent the thumb's up sign.

Last April Boyland allegedly solicited a $250,000 bribe from the undercover agents in which they would purchase a former hospital in his district and obtain state funding to renovate the site, then re-sell it to a non-profit that Boyland claimed he controlled.

"I got a middle guy by the way. ... I gotta stay clean ... I got a bag man," Boyland told them, according to the complaint.

Boyland was scheduled to be arraigned Tuesday afternoon in Brooklyn Federal Court.

"The extent of the charged corruption is staggering," said Brooklyn U.S. Attorney Loretta Lynch. "The defendant had a strong political legacy, the trust of his community, and the privilege of serving it.

"Not content with these many benefits, the defendant is alleged to have auctioned the power of his seat in the Assembly to the highest bidder for his own personal gain and the potential detriment of the voters who elected him to office."

Earlier this month Boyland was acquitted of peddling his influence over a non-profit running hospitals in Queens and Brooklyn in exchange for $175,000 in bribes.